What Tom Friedman means by Pro-Life – and why

Hard-line conservatives have gone to new extremes lately in opposing abortion. Last week, Richard Mourdock, the Tea Party-backed Republican Senate candidate in Indiana, declared during a debate that he was against abortion even in the event of rape because after much thought he “came to realize that life is that gift from God. And even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.” That came on the heels of the Tea Party-backed Republican Representative Joe Walsh of Illinois saying after a recent debate that he opposed abortion even in cases where the life of the mother is in danger, because “with modern technology and science, you can’t find one instance” in which a woman would not survive without an abortion. “Health of the mother has become a tool for abortions anytime, for any reason,” Walsh said. That came in the wake of the Senate hopeful in Missouri, Representative Todd Akin, remarking that pregnancy as a result of “legitimate rape” is rare because “the female body has ways to try and shut that whole thing down.”

These were not slips of the tongue. These are the authentic voices of an ever-more-assertive far-right Republican base that is intent on using uncompromising positions on abortion to not only unseat more centrist Republicans — Mourdock defeated the moderate Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana in the primary — but to overturn the mainstream consensus in America on this issue. That consensus says that those who choose to oppose abortion in their own lives for reasons of faith or philosophy should be respected, but those women who want to make a different personal choice over what happens with their own bodies should be respected, and have the legal protection to do so, as well.

But judging from the unscientific — borderline crazy — statements opposing abortion that we’re hearing lately, there is reason to believe that this delicate balance could be threatened if Mitt Romney and Representative Paul Ryan, and their even more extreme allies, get elected. So to those who want to protect a woman’s right to control what happens with her own body, let me offer just one piece of advice: to name something is to own it. If you can name an issue, you can own the issue. And we must stop letting Republicans name themselves “pro-life” and Democrats as “pro-choice.” It is a huge distortion.

In my world, you don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and be against common-sense gun control — like banning public access to the kind of semiautomatic assault rifle, designed for warfare, that was used recently in a Colorado theater. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and want to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, which ensures clean air and clean water, prevents childhood asthma, preserves biodiversity and combats climate change that could disrupt every life on the planet. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and oppose programs like Head Start that provide basic education, health and nutrition for the most disadvantaged children. You can call yourself a “pro-conception-to-birth, indifferent-to-life conservative.” I will never refer to someone who pickets Planned Parenthood but lobbies against common-sense gun laws as “pro-life.”

“Pro-life” can mean only one thing: “respect for the sanctity of life.” And there is no way that respect for the sanctity of life can mean we are obligated to protect every fertilized egg in a woman’s body, no matter how that egg got fertilized, but we are not obligated to protect every living person from being shot with a concealed automatic weapon. I have no respect for someone who relies on voodoo science to declare that a woman’s body can distinguish a “legitimate” rape, but then declares — when 99 percent of all climate scientists conclude that climate change poses a danger to the sanctity of all life on the planet — that global warming is just a hoax.

The term “pro-life” should be a shorthand for respect for the sanctity of life. But I will not let that label apply to people for whom sanctity for life begins at conception and ends at birth. What about the rest of life? Respect for the sanctity of life, if you believe that it begins at conception, cannot end at birth. That radical narrowing of our concern for the sanctity of life is leading to terrible distortions in our society.

Respect for life has to include respect for how that life is lived, enhanced and protected — not only at the moment of conception but afterward, in the course of that life. That’s why, for me, the most “pro-life” politician in America is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. While he supports a woman’s right to choose, he has also used his position to promote a whole set of policies that enhance everyone’s quality of life — from his ban on smoking in bars and city parks to reduce cancer, to his ban on the sale in New York City of giant sugary drinks to combat obesity and diabetes, to his requirement for posting calorie counts on menus in chain restaurants, to his push to reinstate the expired federal ban on assault weapons and other forms of common-sense gun control, to his support for early childhood education, to his support for mitigating disruptive climate change.

Now that is what I call “pro-life.”

OK – so there really aren’t many spare words in a Friedman Op-Ed to edit away. Here’s the whole piece. And I agree with it all.

In fact I’d add a little from my old-time activist point-of-view. It’s been, let’s see – 47 years since the last time I found a fundamentalist preacher standing alongside me in a demonstration challenging racism, opposing the thugs who also dedicated the death of thousands of young Americans to their dirty little war in VietNam. I don’t think you’d find it surprising that he was a Black preacher, head of a small storefront Missionary Baptist congregation. Though there were beaucoup white Southern Baptists in the same city.

That same year – in the same city – I shared a cell with a Catholic priest. It wasn’t uncommon for mainstream religious adherents to stand up against the worst of American politics. It still happens – when you get below the rank of prince of the church.

My public experience, today, with those who abuse the definition of Pro-Life is that they couldn’t care less about challenging the political creeps and cretins who justify their lousy wars with the blood of Americans mixed with the blood of foreign soldiers, foreign civilians. That is hypocrisy. That is cowardice. They do not deserve respect for the lies they tell themselves.

3 thoughts on “What Tom Friedman means by Pro-Life – and why”

I agree with ever word you wrote, and with what Tom Friedman says. From an outsider’s perspective – I’m a Brit (abortion legalised in 1966) living in France (free contraception and abortions for teenagers) I find the attitude of most anti-abortionists utterly bizarre. Not only are many of them opposed to all of the things that you and Mr Friedman list, but a lot are also in favour of capital punishment. Love the foetus, hate the child?

“My public experience, today, with those who abuse the definition of Pro-Life is that they couldn’t care less about challenging the political creeps and cretins who justify their lousy wars with the blood of Americans mixed with the blood of foreign soldiers, foreign civilians. That is hypocrisy. That is cowardice. They do not deserve respect for the lies they tell themselves.”

Absolutely. I support your sentiments above whole heartedly. However, I cannot agree with Friedman’s sentiments below:

“the most “pro-life” politician in America is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. While he supports a woman’s right to choose, he has also used his position to promote a whole set of policies that enhance everyone’s quality of life — from his ban on smoking in bars and city parks to reduce cancer, to his ban on the sale in New York City of giant sugary drinks to combat obesity and diabetes, to his requirement for posting calorie counts on menus in chain restaurants, to his push to reinstate the expired federal ban on assault weapons and other forms of common-sense gun control…”

If respect for life means anything it has to mean respecting my right to live my life as I see fit, even if I choose to go to hell in my own way. Banning sugary drinks. Give me a break!